Weird Weekly Prompts #3: MackGuire vs Hogan, 1988

Posted on Fri 23 August 2013 in Weird Weekly Prompts by Aaron McGuire

hulk hogan

This writing project is courtesy of everyone's good friend Angelo. I'll let him describe it:

A friend challenged me to a writing contest. The basic premise is that for two months, she will send me a writing prompt twice a week. 750 word response. I will do the same with her. The point is to get some experience/feedback writing a bunch of different, unusual things with odd prompts that you don't expect. Would you be interested in doing one a week for the rest of the offseason?

Fun times in Cleveland today. (Cleveland!) Now, that said, we started this exercise a month ago and only recently finished our first contributions. He's posting his on Goodspeed and Poe, everyone's favorite blog. I'm posting my contributions (apparently!) on Gothic Ginobili, everyone's favorite basketball. No, I didn't mean to type "basketball blog." Gothic Ginobili is not a blog. Gothic Ginobili is a basketball. If you disagree with this particular assessment, you just haven't experienced this place properly yet. Here are the previous prompts:

Here's this week's prompt. Angelo was really mean to me this week.

• • •

PROMPT #3: The year is 1988. It's the evening before the World Wrestling Federation's flagship event, Wrestlemania and you, Aaron McGuire, have a shot at the WWF Championship. Your opponent is none other than the legendary Hulk Hogan. You find yourself in front of a green screen with a camera pointed on you. It's time to film your pre-match promo in which you get to address your opponent one last time before you two face off in the squared circle.

What do you say?

You have the creative freedom to create your character as you see fit but with one limitation. As it is 1988, you are the product of the '80's pro wrestling circuit. As such, assume your brain is under the influence of the same amount of steroids, cocaine and concussions as all pro wrestlers of the era. Think like a wrestler, McGuire.

[The camera turns on. MCGUIRE stares into it blankly for what seems like an hour. He speaks.]

MCGUIRE: I brought a dictionary, Hulk Hogan.

[He reaches down and picks up a dictionary off the ground. He flips through it, seemingly completely unaware of the large bookmark roughly two thirds of the way through the tome. After some mindless flipping, he realizes the bookmark exists and turns to it, tossing the bookmark aside.]

MCGUIRE: I'm not big... on words. I'm big on results. I'm big on being big. I'm big on the Mack. I am "Mack Hammer" MackGuire, the greatest to ever flex. You? You're Hulk Hogan. And when I think of Hulk Hogan, I think of this thing.

[MCGUIRE MACKGUIRE waves the dictionary.]

MACKGUIRE: I think of WORDS, Hulk Hogan. Words I don't like. Words I hate. And one word for sure. It is the word called... traitor. It says here, in the Yoxford Real American Dictionary, that you only need two words to define a true traitor to his people. Do you know what those words are, Hulk Hogan?

[He begins to tear pages out of the dictionary indiscriminately. He takes special care to rip out the page that contains the word "traitor", shoving it into his mouth like a raspberry danish gone wrong. He flexes, chews, and yells.]

MACKGUIRE: THOSE WORDS ARE HULK HOGAN.

[He swallows.]

MACKGUIRE: Dictionaries are for nerds and televisions and heads. You don't have any of those, so you probably never knew you were in the dictionary. But that's OK, Hulk Hogan. Because you won't ever have the chance to. I just wanted you to know before Wrestlemania ends you. Because it will, Hulk Hogan. You don't understand these demons. You don't get it.

[He goes silent. The camera zooms in on his eyes. This zoom takes roughly 20 seconds of dead air.]

MACKGUIRE: I am the swamp giant, Hulk Hogan.

[The camera shakes, as if to emulate an earthquake. It instead emulates your father's Christmas home movies.]

MACKGUIRE: Long ago I rose from the swamp at the bottom of the ocean, hungry for sharks and blood. But I'm all out of sharks and blood only makes sense when it's from a traitor, because that's the rules of blood. Rules that people know. Except for traitors, because they don't GET to know that. They don't GET to understand. And you, Hulk Hogan, you're the biggest traitor of them all. You gave up Wrestlemania. You gave up your friends and family. All for what? All for WHAT, HOGAN?

[He stops. He might have lost track of what he was saying, much like everyone watching.]

MACKGUIRE: Hooooooooo... gaaaaaan...

[Oh, nevermind, he's back on track, guess he just wanted to be dramatic.]

MACKGUIRE: Traitors never prosper, except when they're Eggs Benedict. He prospered back when Lincoln was president and the world was different. But you, Hulk Hogan, you're no Eggs Benedict. You're not even the Pope. You're Hulk Hogan, which is a noun, which is a dictionary for traitor. The swamp giant was made to eat traitors for breakfast. And the Mack Hammer never surrenders. Not like you. You always surrender. I know you, even if you think I don't. So step up to that ring, Hulk Hogan, and fight me like a man. And I will destroy you, just like the traitor you are. Just like the traitor you knew you'd be. Kiss your world goodbye, Hulk Hogan. Because it's about to be over. Traitor.

[He mean-mugs the camera, flexing incoherently. Camera fades to black.]